


Mugged

by ghuune



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Angst, Cockles, M/M, suicide rehearsal, tinhat!verse, violence against misha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 05:45:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5816476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghuune/pseuds/ghuune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a Fix It, Jesus fic. Jared and Jensen actually sat there on stage and said, "How's Misha? We haven't actually seen him." So, here you go: why J2 didn't visit Misha when he got mugged. WARNING: I also deal with Jared's breakdown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mugged

X. AUGUST 22nd, 2015  
Misha had a funky, musky odor when Jensen bent to hug him, awkward and one-armed to keep from jostling him; a little like urine if urine also contained battery acid, and of course, he also smelled of blood—a raw, meaty smell—and alcohol. 

“Makeup guys went all out,” Misha joked. He was still buzzed.

“Why haven't they—?” Jensen gestured over his own face, letting the sentence hang. Misha sat there, swollen, bruised, holding a washcloth filled with ice against his split lip. The washcloth was blood-stained. Tiny clots clung to the terrycloth like blackberries. Jensen looked away and swallowed.

“Cut went through the lip, so I have to wait for the plastic surgeon to get out of bed.” Misha rolled his eyes. It was a little past two in the morning, so that was going to take awhile. 

The overhead hospital fluorescents were unkind to him. He looked dead, but they did that to everyone.

Jensen pulled the uncomfortable plastic chair up to the bed and sat down. He rested his hand on Misha's thigh, felt his heat through the denim, wanted to pet down the hard muscle, so he made a fist instead. That wasn't allowed any more. None of this was allowed. 

“Where's Jared?” Misha asked. 

The hospital tiles were off-white flecked with green and brown, which helped conceal tiny spatters of dried blood, but Jensen noticed them anyway. He studied them to avoid his eyes.

“You snuck out on him,” Misha said, and laughed. In his Indio-Russian accent, which was actually improved by his swollen mouth, he said, “Welcome, Dmitri, it is a new life. You are become a homewrecking whore.”

Misha was trying to cheer him up, but that wasn't going to happen. 

Jensen's fist tightened. “Rob called me. He said you told him not to, but he did. You said not one fucking text!”

Jensen, good Texas boy that he was, hardly ever cursed in anger. The ice cubes in Misha's washcloth crunched as his fingers tightened in reaction.

“He disobeyed me? I'll have to punish him. Next year.” He held the ice against his face and groaned for comedy, but when Jensen didn't laugh, he became serious again. “You made it clear how things had to be.”

“What clear?” Jensen kicked off the chair to pace. “'Go off on your own' clear? 'Get beat up' clear? What exactly were you looking for on the wrong side of town, Misha?” 

He stared at the wall and did some deep breathing. Misha, bleeding. Not the best time to air out his frustrations.

“Jen,” Misha said at last, and there was affection and comfort in his use of the nickname. “This is hardly the first time I've been in the emergency room. Not even in the top ten. Calm down.”

“You reminding me of how hard you try to die doesn't help,” Jensen said. He sat back down and, unable to stop himself, moved a strand of Misha's hair off his forehead. Damned if it wasn't tacky with blood.

He said, “I wish I'd been there. I'd've killed those guys.” 

“Three on two would have made for better odds.” Misha grinned, which started his lip bleeding again. He held the washcloth up to his face.

“Let me,” Jensen said, covering his cold fingers with his own. Misha gave him the washcloth, weeping pink as the ice cubes melted. 

“Everyone out in the waiting room?” he muttered, turning his head to the side so Jensen didn't have to stretch. Jensen rested his cheek on Misha's pillowcase, ignoring his acrid smells of stress and blood.

In response to the question, Jensen shook his head, his hair scratching against the starched linen. “No, Rob sent them home.”

“Good.” Misha blinked sleepily, his exotic Russian eyelids like sails slowly drifting down, and Jensen smiled and squeezed his hand.

Rob had met him outside the ER and steered him to a side entrance, then said he'd round everybody up and get them out of there so Jensen could stay as long as he needed. He was one of Misha's closest friends; he could be trusted to conceal Jensen's visit in a way the others could not.

Because there shouldn't be any reason to conceal it. Jensen clenched his jaw. It wasn't Jared's fault. He was sick and he needed support, but there was no denying this sucked, creeping around on his brother to see his injured “it's complicated” ex.

“You don't have to stay,” Misha said. His voice was slurred. “Percocet plus booze equals sleep.”

“I'll stay until the surgeon gets here,” Jensen said. “Then they'll give you the good stuff and put your face back together. I'd just be in the way for all that.”

Misha mumbled, “You have to tell them where everything goes, or I'll wind up looking like a Picasso.”

“What's that, a fruit?” Jensen joked. But Misha was asleep.

XI. A MONTAGE SPANNING AUGUST 2014 TO FEBRUARY 2015  
Jared blew the paper sleeve off his straw so it struck Jensen's cheek like an arrow, and, holding the straw between his teeth, shoved it through the dimple in the plastic lid of his soda. He sucked down the drink until air rattled through the crushed ice on the bottom, then looked up and smiled brightly. 

“So, have fun last night?”

Jensen blushed, then blushed harder because he knew it made the marks on his neck stand out even more. Kori, the makeup artist, groaned and dabbed more concealer over them. “Shut up.”

“You gots some splainin' to do to the director.”

“I said shut up.”

“Dude, how can I? You're late, and you look like the fluffer for a vampire-themed gay porn.”

Jensen threw the cap off the foundation at him.  
\---  
“He's coming, all right? Give him a minute,” Jensen snapped at the assistant director, whose constant, fluttery panic was getting on his nerves. 

“We're behind schedule—”

“He knows, okay? I know, we all know. Just relax. We got this.”

Jensen shook his head as the AD scuttled off to make the lighting guys' lives miserable. It was too friggin' cold, even for November in Vancouver, and he beat his fists together as he went to go find Jared, because if he had to stand around getting frostbite, then dammit, so did he.

Jared's trailer was dark and silent, so he probably wasn't in there, but Jensen tried the door anyway. He was surprised when it opened, and he stepped in, peering around in the gloom, calling, “Jared?”

From the darkness, a strangled breath.  
\---  
“I don't want to talk to anybody,” Jared said. “I just wish—I wish they'd leave us alone.”

“Well, yeah, man, we all want that sometimes,” Jensen said. He was tense all through his body, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, and he had one bitch of a headache. He longed for one of Misha's scalp massages. The man had powerful fingers. 

Not an avenue of thought he could walk down just now, and he was a selfish bastard for even thinking it. 

He palmed the nape of Jared's powerful neck, because his brother refused to lift his head, and, forcibly displacing all thoughts of Misha from his mind (even though he was back on set for his first episode in two months _shut up_ ) said, “What's going on? Talk to me. I'm here.”  
\---  
“When's the last time you ate?”

“Not hungry.”

“Shut up. I made this, and you're gonna eat it.”

“Sure, Jay,” but he didn't.  
\---  
Jared couldn't stop laughing.

At first, it was a relief, like finally, like his brother felt better and they could all laugh again, but Jared couldn't stop laughing, he _couldn't stop laughing_ , and like the twist of a spinning top, the moment turned.  
\---  
_Click._

Jensen was already rocketing across the trailer, pile-driving into Jared's big body, scrabbling for the pistol, which he knew was unloaded going off that dry-fire, but it didn't fucking _matter,_ because his brother had just _mimed suicide_ right in front of him, and all he saw were white stars, and his breath tore out his throat.

He didn't know whether to save Jared or kill him for making him feel this way. His heart beat like a fist squeezing blood.  
\---  
“Dude, I know you love him, but. I can't go on like this, you know? All the screaming is just. Getting to me.”

“What's screaming?”

“This thing, this Dean/Cas thing, this thing you got with Misha, it prints, you know? The fans say we're lying to them. Sam doesn't matter anymore? Everybody screaming. Everything is screaming.”

“Everything? Is screaming.”

“Stay with me, man. Talk. Don't let me hear it, okay? Please?”  
\---  
“He needs time,” Jensen said. He leaned over the table, his forearms bracketing his after-dinner drink. It was a nice restaurant. It had been a good date, Misha in high spirits, laughing, smiling, touching him across the table with promises in his fingertips. But now they'd hit the reason for it, and Jensen was a sweaty mess with his stomach in knots. He wondered if he were about to be sick.

“He said that would help him. More time from me.”

“What time?” Misha asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Your time.”

Misha's eyes met his, searing blue. Imitation candle-flames couldn't alter that color, nor did it transmute his hard expression into anything better. And yet, someone had to hurt here—Jensen was definitely going to hurt, here—and Misha would survive it, while Jared would not. So his choice was clear.

“You mean the time you already negotiated with him to set aside so we can be together. That time.”

“Don't be like that, Mish...”

“Don't tell me how to be. This is just so fucking sad. You really are going to bend your life around his forever.” 

“He's my brother.”

Misha rolled his eyes and flopped back in his booth. “Your brother, your brother, I am so sick and tired of hearing that. One of these days, you're going to have to step up and live your own fucking life!”

“Not when his is on the line,” Jensen said, checking a surge of anger. Misha was being unreasonable, but Misha didn't love Jared, he loved him, and here he was, telling him that even the meager amount of time he could give him was being taken off the table.

“It's not forever,” he said, trying like hell to save something. “Just until he gets well.”

Misha heard the truth inside the lie and smiled, loose and mocking. 

“You talk like all he needs is some chicken noodle soup,” he said. “Jensen, I'll tell you what. I am so utterly over competing with him for you, I'm actually glad you finally made up your mind. He wins, and that's fine.”

He stared Jensen dead in the eye. “You made a decision. Now I can make one, too. You know I'm not going to just sit around and wait.”

Jensen flinched hard enough to splash his drink. Misha and Vicki had an open marriage, but so far as Jensen was concerned, he had one rule: no men or women but himself and Vicki, just as he had no one else but Danneel. Misha had chafed under that restriction, but he'd accepted it. 

What Misha had just said now was, in effect, you toss me aside like this, I'm going outside to play. Not gonna lie, that hurt like hell. His eyes flicked up from his drink, letting Misha see that pain. 

Misha's fingers twitched towards his hand, resting on the table. Misha always touched him when he hurt, but now, he didn't.

“Then it looks like I gotta turn you loose,” he said, gruff. 

“Fine. I accept. Have fun with your life.” Misha avoided his eyes, downed his drink and ditched out of the booth.

And that's how it ended.

XII. APRIL 17th, 2015  
Jensen ended the call with the suits in the south. It had not gone his way. It had not gone well. It had not been a total disaster, since he managed to get through his major points without embarrassing himself, but that was about all that could be said for it.

“It's all right,” Misha said behind him. “You know I'm not taking it that way.”

“Taking it,” Jensen said, with a short laugh. 

“You know what I mean,” Misha said, with a crooked smile.

They were on a closed set for this scene, the heart of the episode, in which Dean turned on Castiel and beat him bloody. Though it wasn't made explicit, the scene had a strong domestic-violence vibe, down to the helpless flutter of Cas's hands as Dean closed in on him—a last-ditch attempt at forestalling the beating.

This was stupid. Cas was a fully-powered angel. He could send Dean into orbit. At the very least, he could minimize the amount of punishment he took. However, the writers had decreed that Cas would not fight back, so Jensen had no choice but to batter Misha against a desk, his face painted with blood.

That was one of Jensen's serious problems with the scene. Not only did it make no logical sense, but in the context of Cas's subtextual relationship with Dean, he, as an actor, thought this a bad line to cross. How could Dean come back from this? He'd beaten his friend, brother, lover, whatever Cas was to Dean's, face bloody. That was specified. Blood. Even though Cas had his grace and could heal anything—it was dumb.

The other problem was the closed set. No Jared, who'd seized the opportunity to fly home for a week. Days alone with Misha, tossing him around, no personal space, eye contact—all the things that had gotten him into trouble to start with. Memories flooded back, and while it was great for the camera—those complicated emotions would show in his eyes and print to the screen—it was more than he wanted to feel.

It'd been weeks since Misha had let him touch him. 

“My safe word is 'pickles,'” Misha'd joked, trying to put him at ease, and he'd had to stop himself from correcting him, from saying in front of everybody, “No it's not, it's 'jabberwocky.'”

“Pickles!” Misha screamed as he sailed through the air to land against the pile of books, and Jensen laughed until his eyes stung with tears, all the tension let out of the scene—and the room—like air from a pierced balloon.

“There's good BDSM and bad BDSM,” Misha said in Cas's voice, instead of his scripted line.

“So which one is this?” Jensen-as-Dean asked, going with it.

“There's a distinct absence of leather, so this must be the bad kind,” Misha-as-Cas said.

He folded again.

With Jared on set, Misha was focused, subdued, fixated on getting the scene in the can as quickly as possible so he could escape Jared, who heckled him all the harder as Jensen stepped back from shielding him. It sucked all the fun out of working with him, and Jared was vocal about how lame Misha was these days. But Jared was putting himself back together. While Jensen didn't entirely understand this new version of his brother, if it was stable, it was better than the old one. There'd be time, once Jared was secure in himself, to get to know him again.

What hurt most was the fact that Jared, who seemed to believe it all dead and over between himself and Misha, visibly celebrated the end of a waste of time. He'd never taken it seriously. To him, it was sex—extremely weird sex, like wearing diapers or frotting against balloons. It belonged in the same category as the “Dean/Cas” relationship—a regrettable mistake, but easily corrected. Jensen was still too scared for him to cross him in this.

And overall, he agreed. Life was certainly easier now that he didn't have to juggle Misha along with Jared and Danneel. The Show was tighter and more focused without the overt romanticism between himself and Castiel. He told himself that whenever it hurt, and sometimes he believed it.

He slammed Misha down on the desk, tumbled Misha onto the floor, and Misha let out a small, pained whimper. 

That was a break in character. That was a real whimper.

Damn it.

The camera was still rolling, and Jensen didn't want to have to do this again, so he stayed Dean, pulled Cas down like he was supposed to, and flipped him over, fighting off memories of manipulating Misha's body this way in other contexts. He clapped him on the chest: Are you okay?

“Dean, please,” Cas groaned.

Blood welled up in Misha's mouth. That was a special effect, and it was in the script, but it still chilled Jensen to the marrow. He grabbed Cas's tie, and the director called, “Cut! Print!”

“Mish,” he said, kneeling. “What happened?”

“Got the wind knocked out,” Misha said, and his voice did sound breathless and hollow. 

“Fifteen to set cameras,” the director called. “Good job, Misha, that looked great.”

Jensen gave Misha a hand up from the floor. Jensen was shaking. 

“Creep,” he said, referring to the director. 

“I've worked with worse,” Misha said. 

Misha's face, smeared with streaks of fake blood. The blue of his eyes was intense against all that red.

“Are you okay?” Misha asked, because Jensen's shakes weren't subsiding, they were getting worse. The air swept out of the world with a speed which left his skin prickling and his fingers numb.

“Jesus,” Misha said. “Come on.”

He bundled Jensen off behind the wall where no one could see them and pulled him into a hug, cradled his head against his shoulder and crooned into his ear, an incomprehensible hum whose only meaning was comfort.

He moved his lips to Misha's ear, breathed against Misha's neck, knowing how unfair he was being but—oh God, he'd spent so long being Jared's rock, giving him strength, and no one had been there for him, no one but Danneel, who'd gone back to being Switzerland on the subject of Misha. He was simply out of strength, and now he consciously gave himself permission to soak Misha in, fair or not. If there was one thing he knew, Misha had strength to spare. 

Misha allowed himself to be used, stiffening slightly under Jensen's hands but otherwise still, rumbling without interruption in his ear even as Jensen kissed the stiff, curving edge of his own. Under the Play-Dough smell of fake blood, he caught a whiff of the herbal soap he favored, something handmade and hippie that left a light scent of woodsmoke and green grass and flowers behind. 

He grew bolder, pressed him against the wall, let him feel his weight. The body he'd been pretending to brutalize was warm and whole and hard under his own. With a feeling like a punch to the pit of his stomach, he felt Misha's swift reaction to his closeness. Fast on the heels of rising, desperate lust, he remembered he was not the only man Misha reacted to these days, and he moved his lips away from Misha's ear, he pressed his cheek to Misha's shoulder, and he moved his hips away—just in time, really. 

Misha slumped a little, whether in disappointment or relief, Jensen couldn't tell. Misha was shielded against him; he couldn't read him like he once could, and that, perhaps, made him lonelier than the loss of his access to his body. 

“I know,” Misha said, the first clear words he'd said. “It's hard.”

Jensen chuckled a little at the bad joke, but he caught the meaning and said, “This is tough.”

“Danneel not playing nice?” Misha asked.

“She won't let me cry on her shoulder, that's for damned sure,” Jensen said.

“That's my girl.”

“I can't have you corrupting my wife, now.”

“Don't kid yourself. She came pre-corrupted. I'm really just taking advantage of a bad situation,” Misha shrugged. Jensen's shakes were gone and he was breathing more easily, so Misha opened his hands, signalling it was time to break the hug. Only Jensen didn't step back right away. He'd missed this too much to deny himself a single moment of it.

Misha met his eyes. His pupils were dilated, but his gaze was candid and direct. “How's Jared these days?” he asked.

“Relieved,” Jensen said, cursing his honesty as soon as the word left his mouth. He saw it cut Misha, whose eyelashes flinched shut for a flash-second. 

“Okay,” Misha said, recovering. “Moment over. This was good.” He patted Jensen's cheek, a little mockingly. “Tormenting each other like this is fun. We should do it again sometime.” 

Jensen stepped back, gave Misha an avenue, and Misha started to walk away.

He looked back over his shoulder. “You said it wasn't stopping, back then.”

“I did,” Jensen said. He said, “I meant it.”

A spasm of pain crossed Misha's face. He nodded and turned away, Cas's trench swirling around his knees.


End file.
